Evidence-based mental health promotion resource - health.vic.gov.au

Evidence-based mental health promotion resource91Step 2: Develop a basic program outlineBased on your rationale and priorities, develop a basic program outline that you cantake to potential stakeholders and partners to enlist their support. Use the VicHealthFramework for the Promotion of Mental Health and Wellbeing to develop a basicprogram outline that includes your proposals for:The Department of Human ServicesCommon Planning Framework refers to thisstage as problem definition.• population groups of interest• health promotion action areas• settings• levels at which intermediate outcomes are focused (individual, organisational,community, societal).If you develop goals and objectives at this stage, be prepared for them revised andreworked by your partners as they engage with the project and you negotiate theprogram to be developed.Step 3: Develop partnershipsThe establishment of partnerships is critical to the effectiveness of mental healthpromotion programs, so knowing how to establish, maintain and sustain wider networksof community groups, agencies and organisations, and other practitioners andcommunity folk is a necessary skill for effective mental health promotion practice.Planning processes of other agencies in your area may have identified priority issues(although they are likely to be health issues rather than determinants), so links could bemade to those agencies. It may also be useful to link with statewide programs workingon mental health promotion. The key for success is to choose where and how yourprogram will make a ‘conscious, deliberate and substantial effort to influence change’(Labonte 2003, p. 15) in one or more determinants of mental health and wellbeing.With your basic program outline, you are in a position to ‘sell’ the proposed programto potential partners, but your content and methods should remain fluid to ensureownership by all partners. The evidence tells us that a program, to effect change,must ‘unpack’ the underlying determinants of any health issue in terms of mentalhealth promotion outcomes, and you need to do this with your partners (even if youhave already worked it through). For this reason, when developing integrated healthpromotion programs, you should involve partner agencies in brainstorming potentialactivities that may be required to achieve the objectives. Sitting around the table tounpack the determinants may turn up new information that you had not thought about.